You can get free stuff by streaming or even just watching Bethesda games on Twitch

Play games. Watch games. Get free stuff for your games. What's the catch?

Bethesda has announced a new initiative apparently aimed at increasing its Twitch presence.

The essence of the Twitch Drops scheme is this: link your Twitch and Bethesda.net accounts, then stream a Bethesda game - or just tune into somebody's else stream of a Bethesda game - and be rewarded.

No concrete details are available, unfortunately - Bethesda just said players will receive "free stuff in the Bethesda games they’re already playing, just by streaming or viewing a stream for that game on Twitch".

It's not hard to see what sort of goodies you might get in The Elder Scrolls Online or The Elder Scrolls Legends, but it's difficult to imagine what bonuses might come your way for playing offline, single-player titles like Fallout 4 or Prey, two games Bethesda name dropped in its announcement post. The announcement was made on The Elder Scrolls Legends blog, too, so that's probably your safest bet for testing the system out.

It's a pretty clever way to help push Bethesda games up Twitch's trending charts, which have a big impact on which titles key influencers choose to highlight, which in turn affects how many other people begin to play the game, and that - well, you get the idea. It's smart, and when you look at what a big deal Hearthstone is to streamers, you can see why Bethesda might want to winkle The Elder Scrolls Legends into that same space.

This isn't the first time Twitch has teamed up to help promote a specific game; Twitch Prime members get exclusive outfits in PlayerUnknown's Battlegrounds, which is a very hot ticket at the moment.